Olivier Messiaen - Éclairs sur l'Au-delà… (Illuminations of the Beyond) (1994)
Classical | EAC (APE & CUE) | 252 MB
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Éclairs sur L'Au-delà, Messiaen's last musical creation, is an interesting anomaly: an orchestral work in no less than 11 movements. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the summer of 1987, he completed it in 1991, shortly before his death at the age of 84. But most striking perhaps is that
Éclairs is a Dantesque compositional journey of supernatural transcendence that culminates in temporal death and spiritual resurrection. Another captivating aspect of this work is its mesmerizing attention, depiction and transcription of bird-son. Messiaen employed Indian and Greek rhythms, notably in his monumental
Turangalîla Symphonie (1946-1948)—a ten-movement piece where he makes use of the ondes martenot, an early electronic form of keyboard.
Éclairs, on the other hand retains a strong impressionistic residue. While an unimpeded and direct grasp of immediate reality or aspects thereof are realized through an intuitive process, in musical terms this same understanding becomes one of the aims of impressionism.